A17698:4172
Sermons upon Deuteronomy
The sermons of M. John Calvin upon the fifth book of Moses called Deuteronomy faithfully gathered word for word as he preached them in open pulpit; together with a preface of the ministers of the Church of Geneva, and an admonishment made by the deacons there. Also there are annexed two profitable tables, the one containing the chief matters; the other the places of Scripture herein alleged. Translated out of French by Arthur Golding.The sermons of M. Iohn Caluin vpon the fifth booke of Moses called Deuteronomie faithfully gathered word for word as he preached them in open pulpet; together with a preface of the ministers of the Church of Geneua, and an admonishment made by the deacons there. Also there are annexed two profitable tables, the one containing the chiefe matters; the other the places of Scripture herein alledged. Translated out of French by Arthur Golding.
London: printed by Henry Middleton for George Bishop, 1583
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
And according hereunto Moses addeth, that God had possessed that people, as he termeth them his heritage. Whereby he doth us to understand (as he will declare afterward) that God meant to have held that people as his own household, suffering the rest of the world to wander away & to become strangers unto him, whereas his will was to have the people of Israel as people familiar and well acquainted with himself. According whereunto he addeth, It is he that hath created thee, it is he that hath shaped thee. And this creation is not the same that belongeth to all men and to all the children of Adam: but it is the same that is spoken of in the hundred Psalm. It is he that made us,1 and not we our selves. And it is a very common speech in the holy scripture, to say that God hath created and fashioned his Church. This is a people whom I my self have created,2 and they shall set forth my praise saith he, in the three and fortieth of Isaiah. But it were needless to allege many places, for all the scripture is full of them. And it is a notable point of doctrine, that God declareth us to be new creatures,3 at such time as he chooseth us to himself. True it is that we be greatly bound unto him, for vouchsafing to set us in this world. For although he had made us but brute beasts, yet were it a great thing that we might be counted the work of his hands. But it was not his will that we should be Asses or Horses: it was his will that we should be reasonable creatures. This is so high a preeminence, that we cannot commend it sufficiently. Yet is that nothing, in comparison of his calling of us to the faith. Insomuch that when he telleth us that he will take us to be of his Church, he doth after a sort forget his former creating and saith: that he giveth us a far other thing than to have bin mortal men, which is nothing in comparison to be of his Church. And this serveth to humble us, to the intent we should not think our selves to be come to the faith by our own power, but acknowledge the same to be the gift of God, least we should usurp the title of the creator, by imagining our selves to have gotten faith by our own ability, as the Papists do, who say that although they cannot do any thing but through the grace of God, yet do they prepare and dispose themselves thereto aforehand.